NuVoodoo Media

By Carolyn Gilbert & Leigh Jacobs

President & EVP, Research Analysis

Do Listeners Know Which Songs Fit?

November 9, 2015

Sure, respondents will respond to questions used by some researchers asking if songs “fit” on a station. The question is whether or not the responses are meaningful.

Faced with questions like this, most respondents answer based on what they’ve heard on stations over time. If they haven’t heard that song much on the station – if at all – it must not fit. Incorporated into playlists, the resulting metrics tend reduce the pleasant surprises that make it fun to listen to music radio (compared to albums or music playlists where you know which songs are coming up) and gradually erode station variety images. If you’re selling research, it’s a good deal since you may then get to sell your client a perceptual study to figure out what’s happened to your variety image.

Most music station P1’s in our most recent NuVoodoo Ratings Prospect Study say they’ve been pleasantly surprised by a song on the radio within the past week. We’d argue that stations need to be working harder to build in those surprises, but these little surprises are clearly part of the music-radio experience.

The truth is that listeners don’t think about what songs belong on a station. They think about what matters in their lives. Are their kids going to be okay at school today? Will those leftovers in the fridge be okay for dinner tonight? Why has that one hemlock in the hedge out front gone brown? Does the boss really need that report completed by noon today?

It’d be like asking most of us whether or not we’d like more marjoram or less rosemary in our gravy at Thanksgiving. Never thought about it. Don’t really have a wide base of experience with what’s involved to know. Let me taste the finished product – or experience the resulting station music mix – and I’ll have a better idea. It’s why master chefs – and master music PD’s – are sought-after individuals. If respondents could reliably tell us which songs fit on stations, there’d be fewer PD’s at music radio stations.

At NuVoodoo we believe in allowing respondents to answer questions that mean something. Do you recognize that song based on the hook? If so, how do you feel about the song, using a very simple scale? We’re trying to keep them out of their heads – answering by reacting to what they’re hearing, just as they will when the song comes on their car radio. It’s not a reasoned decision to switch stations or turn up the volume – it’s a reaction.

The resulting music test data tell you which songs are familiar, which songs people really like and which ones they either dislike or are just tired of hearing. From there, it’s up to expert programmers to make decisions using their experience and intuition. Online services like Pandora do the best they can getting consumers to listen through their teeny commercial loads with playlists built from automated algorithms and analyses. Meanwhile, radio shoulders much greater commercial inventories and maintains TSL with playlists guided by actionable research and human-curated schedules.

As a broadcast journalism major at Penn State University, Carolyn Gilbert served as WQWK's first female jock before moving on to Cincinnati and WWEZ, WEBN, an audio production companyâ€¦ and two little kids sent to hone her management skills.

Her research career started when she launched Critical Mass Media in the 80's, which she grew from two stations to over 700, serving every major broadcasting group. Eventually, Critical Mass became an "in house" provider of services for the 1200 Clear Channel radio stations, and Carolyn served as President.

Following a stint as EVP/Research and Inside Sales for Tribune, Carolyn teamed with partners Erin Gabbard, Leigh Jacobs and Mike O'Conor to form NuVoodoo in 2010, providing innovative products that work within limited budgets and deliver results. "Because that's the way we always do it," has become a forbidden sentence.

Leigh Jacobs fell in love with radio in 8th grade, got deeply involved in his high school's 10-watt FM station a year later and never recovered. After 20 years in the business, including 16 years as a program director, he joined Critical Mass Media as a perceptual analyst in 1999. Across nearly a decade at Critical Mass, Leigh designed and analyzed hundreds of studies for stations in all formats.

He teamed with partners Carolyn Gilbert and Mike O'Connor to form NuVoodoo in 2010. He continues to look for better questions and better ways to ask them - to give radio stations and owners better insights into listeners. Reach him with your questions at leigh@nuvoodoo.com.